Gyroscope Review · 2020-06-27 · Gyroscope Review Summer 2020 Issue 20-3 77 ANNOUNCEMENTS Our...

Gyroscope Review

Fine poetry to turn your world around

Issue 20-3

Summer 2020

Copyright © 2020 Gyroscope Review

Constance Brewer

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Constance Brewer

Assistant Editors:

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Protest 2020

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FROM THE EDITOR

How the world has changed since the last issue! When the Spring Issue released on April 1, it

was just the start of stay at home orders and a small number of deaths due to coronavirus.

Now things have spiraled out of control. Attention was on the pandemic and its various effects

on the country, mask/no mask confrontations, opening a business, not opening a business. The

ever-climbing numbers of people dead from Covid 19. We watched in fascination as cities and

states locked down, streets emptied, people tried to find a new normal in working from home.

The lack of leadership in those trying times weighted on us.

Then came an incident that left the country reeling. A police officer murdered a black man,

George Floyd, in a horrific way while being videoed by bystanders, and acted as if it was

nothing out of the ordinary. The country exploded in outrage. The conditions people of color

have to live under, the brutality of the police toward them, the casual disregard of fellow

human beings struck a nerve with just about everyone. Protest marches erupted and became a

daily occurrence. The people spoke, loudly and in great numbers.

Poets remained steadfast through it all and plied their unique talents to try to make sense of

what's happening in the world—sometimes that's how we come to understand what other

people go through to exist. That's what poets do best, interpret, and distill the essence to

present it to people searching for meaning. This is a good thing. People crave interpretations.

Many poets in this issue addressed the events of the world in their own unique ways. We look

forward to continuing the conversation in upcoming issues. Thank you, poets, for all you do to

foster understanding. Stay safe out there.

Constance Brewer, Editor

Gyroscope Review Summer 2020 Issue 20-3 3

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Section 1 7

Three Korean Sijo Poems (in English) 9

by David Jibson

Asleep at Sea 10

by Clare Belber Bercot Zwerling

Acoloro 11

by Jeffrey Hantover

Bone Orchard 12

by Bruce McRae

Ars Poetica 13

by Rosemary Royston

Speak to Me 14

by Abasiama Udom

My Friend Says 15

by Stephanie Yue Duhem

Glut 17

by Malisa Garlieb

A Kiss Named “Yes, I Really Was That Old” 18

by Megan McDermott

Aging Gym Rats 19

by Sarah Ferris

a message in a bottle 20

by Elaine Wilburt

Conception 21

by Trisha Gauthier

Gone 22

by George Ryan

Limitations 23

by Carol Hamilton

I Saw Kendrah 24

by Ron Riekki


Wide-eyed 25

by Elaine Wilburt

listen 26

by Elodie Roumanoff

Section 2 29

A World Without Noise 30

by Jocelyn Uasal

Listening To Philip Glass’ “Changing Opinions” 31

by Laura Grace Weldon

Picking A Bone With Mary Oliver's Ghost 32

by Lyndi Waters

The Shit We Carry (apologies to Tim O’Brien) 33

by Alan Harris

Mailbox 34

by Jean-Luc Fontaine

Emergency Medical Services 36

by Ron Riekki

Wiggly ennui 2 37

by Yun Bai Kim

still life of sex in the garden of eden 38

by Liam Strong

NEWYORKIAN 39

by Divyasri Krishnan

Where you are 40

by Janice S Fuller

Potential 41

by Yongsoo Park

Soup in Isolation 42

by Jacqueline Jules

Confessional // The Opposite of Loneliness 43

by Kanika Ahuja

On This Summer Day 44

by Martin Willitts Jr


A Question of Scale 45

by Paul Ilechko

Mask Upon Mask 46

by William Doreski

Things Change 47

by Tufik Shayeb

Section 3 49

a life lived black 51

by Lemachi Enweremadu

A Revisionist History of Kaboom 54

by Rodd Whelpley

The Note Keeper 55

by Linda Carney-Goodrich

(Sonnet #1,941) Two Saami-Americans Walk into a Bar 56

by Ron Riekki

The Wreck of Captain Kiss 57

by S.D. Lishan

Agatha 59

by Ken Cathers

news of an earthquake 61

by German Dario

Quake 62

by Kristian Macaron

Instructional Litany I 63

by Dan Wiencek

Why and Because 64

Brendan Constantine & Peggy Dobreer

Within a Locker’s Wild Abundance, Calm 65

by Marjorie Becker

On “All Surroundings Are Referred to a High Water” by Kay Sage 66

by Nadia Wolnisty

The Tractor Man Suggests Melons 67

by R. Bratten Weiss


Osmosis 68

by Priya Rajan

Beyond the Opening of the Universe 69

by Michael Freveletti

This Is My Riot 70

by David B. Prather

Contributors 71

Announcements 77


SECTION 1


THREE KOREAN SIJO POEMS (IN ENGLISH)

BY DAVID JIBSON

Sijo Number 1

“I hate football,” grandmother told me,

“but I miss the sound of him

watching his favorite team

while I cook the Sunday pot-roast,

so I keep the television on

in the empty living room.”

Sijo Number 2

Last night the moon and Jupiter

appeared so close together

they were like a tiny tug boat

towing a huge liner

bound for the antipodes

into the blackest ocean.

Sijo Number 3

Siddhartha sought enlightenment

in the shade of a banyan tree.

His followers claim he found it

after years of meditation

but what he really found was that

he couldn’t uncross his legs.


ASLEEP AT SEA

BY CLARE BELBER BERCOT ZWERLING

The plank measures

ten feet long twelve inches wide

I think

lying astraddle face down hard

the ocean five hundred feet

below stormy

churning blue enormous as the sea

white lace foamy existing alone

but for the book large and wide open

as if I’ve been reading-absorbed on this perch

suddenly realizing the predicament

yet not cold not hot clothed or naked

unaware

My brain: don’t be afraid

that voice below watery

weak-agonized

alerts me to move the book and I

face the ship a saving grace

inch the book forward inch my body

forward inch breathe inch breathe

My brain: don’t think

inch breathe inch breathe

then the open

steady

embracing arms of the ship

exhale relax


ACOLORO

BY JEFFREY HANTOVER

"in an island called Acoloro, which lies below Java Major there are found no persons

but women, and that they become pregnant from the wind. When they bring forth, if

the offspring is a male, they will kill it..." Antonio Pigafetta, Magellan's Voyage

Around the World.

She shinnied under palm’s parasol

to shake loose the coconuts.

The breeze, heart hollow as a conch,

snaked between her thighs.

Red moons turned pink

on white sand between her feet.

In jungle cave she cut him loose

while in distant huts sisters dreamt

of warm breezes.

Hands scratched and bleeding

she lashed a covered cradle of latania leaves

to a raft of bamboo and coconut shells

placed a rag's milky corner between his lips

two prayers on his cheeks

and gave him back to the wind.


BONE ORCHARD

BY BRUCE MCRAE

Boxing in the bone orchard.

Wrestling dragons. Contesting gravity.

The breather who’s smothering in oxygen.

Mind like a rift valley. Face like a moon.

I’m the village-saved-by-burning-it-down.

I’m the no-fool-like-an-old-fool.

The last-man-on-the-planet.

A four and a half billion year-old child

bent to the rod of self-destruction.


ARS POETICA

-after Jackson Wheeler

BY ROSEMARY ROYSTON

Because mom was from New York and dad from Oklahoma. Because of the Doxology and

slender, brown hymnals. Because of forests I wandered, solo. Because Gone with the Wind.

Because of covered-dish meals on granite tables. Because of summers in Rockland County.

Because of my transistor radio and Marvin Gaye. Because of the guy in 10th grade and the

front of his daddy’s Caprice Classic. Because I memorized The Gettysburg Address and A

Child’s Garden of Verses. Because of S.E. Hinton. Because he was innocent and no one

believed him. Because nothing gold can stay. Because of soil and squash and radishes and fig

trees. Because of what lies at the bottom of the lake.


SPEAK TO ME

BY ABASIAMA UDOM

Speak to me of you,

tell the finer points if they hide the ugly

for truly I care not.

Speak of a time to come,

of promises you may never keep

just speak for I love to hear, to watch your pinkish lips

moving in lines of sweet allure, speak and I will listen,

tell of the little kindness hidden in mighty ills.

Speak to me in voice syrupy like honey,

dazzling clear like sugar,

to which the sun dims, the moon shines brighter.

Speak with light and song,

speak, my heart hears, opens its gate.

Speak, heal my wanting. For long no one has spoken.

Speak.


MY FRIEND SAYS

BY STEPHANIE YUE DUHEM

Stop trying to fix broken men.

You are not some chick Pygmalion.

Don't pick at slabs of marble

like a scab over some hollow

you can't own.

Because you know this swamp.

You know this cratered moon...

But his moon-bright skin!

Your man-blight thing?

What thing within a man makes him

stand up, from a stump of stone?

Lift his star-scythed eyes?

Proffer the planets of his palms?

It’s not for us to know.

But my chisel is a question,

not a weapon I can stow.

My hand moves on its own

these dust-weighed days…

Well, mine doesn’t!

My friend lays

her fingers over mine,

firm as firmament

over earth.


And sloughing me off

the chalk white walls

of Love’s rough-hewn womb,

she says:

Doll,

follow, follow, follow

me from this room!


GLUT

BY MALISA GARLIEB

I.

I am wasteful.

A slut for blueberries

wandering mazes of bluecrop

bluejay, patriot, rabbiteye.

I grab blue fistfuls

and half the berries roll

to rot underfoot.

High on sugared sunshine

and slap-tart sweet.

II.

I gape at the man in the third row

who doesn’t move on—

one highbush fills his pail

and he lifts branches to reveal

what’s low and hidden.

Each discrete berry’s a prayer bead

and he’s devoted.

Later, with even breathing

he holds my hand in sleep.


A KISS NAMED “YES, I REALLY WAS THAT OLD”

BY MEGAN MCDERMOTT

In the car, I realize I no longer remember

the name of the first person I kissed,

even though I was twenty-two years old,

a full-blown adult with a college degree.

If I’d been a wobbly pre-teen spinning

bottles in a basement, I could forgive the slip –

name lost to hazy, hormonal distance.

But I wasn’t, so I test names. Dylan? Brian?

Neither seems right, so I’ll name the kiss instead,

call it “The Long Anticipated” or the preceding

thought, “Fuck It, I’m Twenty-Two.” Alternatively:

“What Happened on the Dance Floor Stayed

on the Dance Floor” or maybe “What Happens

When Dance Floors Are The Only Place You Feel Sexy.”

I no longer remember the name, but I remember

the self-conscious knowledge that my friends

stood nearby as witnesses. I call it now

“Weak Fulfillment of Prophecy and Prayer.”


AGING GYM RATS

BY SARAH FERRIS

The regulars recognize each other

as we look for a secret to forestall

the inevitable, an elixir

to stop the nagging aches.

At the gym we see the old man,

bent back from too much desk work

shuffle between machines.

The wispy-hair perfectly coiffed woman

with bright red lipstick, black,

black eyebrows and too much foundation

pushing oxygen with her emaciated hand

and we gym rats work a little harder.


A MESSAGE IN A BOTTLE

BY ELAINE WILBURT

I will sail far in some blithe old skiff

till one morning I find myself

where the summer births

and air salts my failing tongue,

and at last I will cast my words

in ululating waves,

unaware what may be spirited

to shore or what reply may return

to me.


CONCEPTION

BY TRISHA GAUTHIER

My friends would think me crazy

if I told them: nights spent lying in bed

cradling my stomach

as it pushes against my thin shirt

tracing the arc of that slight

half-moon

wishing I could conceive.

I would hollow out my abdomen

like scraping guts from a pumpkin

if it meant a uterus could fit.

Please, let me have this

one selfish wish—let me sleep

peacefully just one night,

dreaming of that tiny future

dreaming of her bright blue eyes.


GONE

BY GEORGE RYAN

In spite of Parkinsonian twitches,

an elderly uncle (my father’s side)

maintained his imperturbability.

He no longer drove. He sat around.

Late one afternoon he disappeared.

His wife and daughter searched everywhere,

looked in closets, under beds. No sign.

The evening rush hour had begun—

he might wander into lanes of traffic.

His daughter drove about, looking for him,

and got caught in traffic away from home.

Here was her father, almost decrepit,

whose shoelaces she tied every day,

who had to be helped up and down steps,

riding on

her

bicycle at speed

in the center of a stream of cars.

When she maneuvered alongside

he pretended not to see or hear her.

She caught him at a traffic light

and gently shoved him into her car.

His first words were: Don’t tell your mother.


LIMITATIONS

BY CAROL HAMILTON

In Muslim art

the mythical waq wuf tree

grows both plants and animals

as its fruit,

and I looked at its ancient depiction

and knew they were right:

nothing is as we know it

or only as we know.


I SAW KENDRAH

BY RON RIEKKI

in the play Rhinoceros. At the end, she was onstage,

all these rhinoceroses’ horns emerging from walls,

doors, the ceiling, from the audience, from the floor-

boards, from the bed, the violence of it all, really

a pandemic, and I kept staring at her, how she seemed

to glow, how the rhinos didn’t even exist, not really,

just her, how she owned them, and the roses at the end,

how they were all over her, stacked around her, even

they were nothing compared to the beauty of her eyes.


WIDE-EYED

BY ELAINE WILBURT

On the first page of my dreambook,

it begins again, the nocturnal pulse.

In a dark time the eye begins to see:

I can tell you this because I have held in my hand

a woman in the shape of a monster.

My hands are murder-red. Many a plump head...

What is the head?

A single man stands like a bird-watcher:

from plane of light to plane, wings dipping through,

the moon drops one or two feathers into the field.

I shall never put you together entirely.

The nearsighted child has taken off her glasses.

One sound. Then the hiss and whir,

any clear thing that blinds us with surprise.

Cento from The Vintage Book of Contemporary American Poetry, from opening lines by

Charles Simic, "Empire of Dreams"; Donald Justice, "The Assassination"; Theodore Roethke,

"In a Dark Time"; Marvin Bell, "Drawn by Stones, by Earth, by Things that Have Been in the

Fire"; Adrienne Rich, "Planetarium"; May Swenson, "Strawberrying"; WS Merwin, "Some

Last Questions"; Robert Lowell, "The Mouth of the Hudson"; Robert Penn Warren, "Evening

Hawk"; James Wright, "Beginning"; Sylvia Plath, "The Colossus"; William Meredith,

"Country Stars"; Louise Gluck, "The Garden"; Robert Lowell, "Fishnet".


LISTEN

BY ELODIE ROUMANOFF

Do you hear it?

The trumpet calls from the shore,

and the empty ocean ignores.

Listen to this instead:

the ebbing and flow of the tides

that come and go as they please,

the children who search for shells on the empty seas.

This is the end of the world.

Do you see them?

The shattered chevaliers that roam

untethered, they’re the stars that don’t

need to shine but will, because the world

seems smaller when you count the

streetlights and not the stars.

Seek the stars, yes but for a moment the

inferno is blinding so in this

moment we can finally grasp how

the stars fall onto stray cities but

the lights never drift from their perches on high.

This is the end of the world.

Do you hear the trumpets sounding always sounding

from a million shores away but we

wouldn’t say we do and

anyway they will call you last

they always call you last because you

spend too long looking at the stars.

We are the acrobats blue lips blue

eyes like candy from a baby

born under the stars and not the

lights that listen to the trumpets.

I can see the lights flickering and

brush your hand and lie down to

fill your mind with stars

until it cannot hold still like an acrobat

flying on the walls. Do you watch the

stars who have no direction

though my eyes are watering.

Do you catch bugs that are drawn to

lamps leave them be they don’t hurt us


like we did? Do you feel delicate like the thread

between fingertips that stretches forever

and never breaks until we come back together.

This is the end of the world. It feels like fire.


SECTION 2


A WORLD WITHOUT NOISE

BY JOCELYN UASAL

What a wonder to exist

only as a jagged

spire, before the land

of humans. To have the waves

crash against my edges

for years, upon a beach

empty of emotion. Molecules lead

to particles, lead to grains

of sand of my body

scattered across the sea

floor, undying. By the time

I cuddle between your toes

on Beer Can Beach, Santa Cruz

I shall be nothing but a tiny

collection of everything across

your world. But, for now

I am naught but a great

peak, towering above my land

all alone. Nothing

but myself, peace, and quiet.


LISTENING TO PHILIP GLASS’ “CHANGING OPINIONS”

BY LAURA GRACE WELDON

There may be no pinnacle

higher than music. Granted,

we invent, build, trade, choose

what to believe, even

sequence the human genome

the latter leading us to discover

we likely owe who we are

to ancient viruses.

Easily half our genetic code

arises from bygone viral invaders,

some performing tasks critical

for higher-order thinking.

Maybe music is a murmur, a pulse

left by RNA eons ago,

an imperative prompting us to

bang on skins, pluck tightened cords,

blow through reeds, create what

we call music when all along

it infected us,

made us hosts

of a concert started

long ago in early light.


PICKING A BONE WITH MARY OLIVER'S GHOST

BY LYNDI WATERS

Your work was to love the world alright,

and I’m not questioning

your sincerity or your sensuality,

simply issuing a minor complaint about

you keeping your work one step removed from worlds

the geese wouldn’t dream of landing anywhere near—

toxic waste dumps, meth labs, voting booths,

windy parking lots where cigarette butts

dance with autumn leaves.

You chased beauty hammer and tongs, but Mary, if I may,

I know hummingbirds

and there is nothing sweet about them,

wouldn’t blink at stabbing your virtuous

eye out with their hateful scissor.

And while I love the water moccasin of death/happiness

sliding off a mango tree into the dark water,

I want to remind you that some of us

like lounging around in self-pity,

have given up on ourselves,

and want only to be left in peace

to enjoy a strenuously cultivated indifference

to nature and all she has to offer,

including that other of her cruel little surprises

that I’m sure you knew about but never mentioned.

No no Mary, hear me out,

how it is that no shouts of joy to the moth and wren,

and the sleepy dug-up clam

(who by the way, is about to die an unspeakable death

involving a sharp knife and/or boiling water,)

can tighten the loose skin that swings

from the lovely, lonely, limbs of libido.

Libido that, if one is to believe

my friend Sue from the hardware store,

should have rotted along with everything else

and been gone by now.


THE SHIT WE CARRY (APOLOGIES TO TIM O’BRIEN)

BY ALAN HARRIS

My dog is no longer anxious

about a walk around the block

his nightly intervention

to get me out of the house

has been checked off

his to-doo list

his dark humor

satisfied once more

in watching me carry around

in full view of neighbors

and total strangers

a plastic bag of shit

But now he’s curious

wondering why

I’ve taken pen to paper

to document how it feels

to let him pee indignantly

to let him bark at nothing

to let him sniff EVERYTHING

to clean up after him

and toss away

for another day

all the shit

that I carry


MAILBOX

BY JEAN-LUC FONTAINE

We can’t afford a tow,

my mother once said

when she locked us out of our car,

as she threaded a wire hanger

between the window and the car door,

then scraped the side of the window,

like when she dug her hands

between the sofa cushions

hoping to stumble

upon loose change.

I hated her spendthrift,

the sunburn scaled

on the back of my neck—

the way she nearly broke down

into tears

when she called a tow

from a nearby payphone.

But now, after checking my mailbox,

I realize I’ve locked myself out

of my car—the engine idling,

the exhaust lethargically

unraveling

thin ribbons of smoke

into the gravel-gray morning light.

After looking at the bills

stuffed inside my mailbox,

I grab a wire hanger

and straighten the crinkled aluminum

with a pair of rust-stained pliers,

just as my mother showed me.

I wiggle the wire fishing hook

inside the door,

but after three hours

of sliding the wire back and forth,

the car remains locked—

the empty-gas-light

blinking red behind the wheel.


And after slamming my hands on the window,

I can feel tears

gather behind my eyes,

like my family gathering outside

the doors of the foodbank—

the wire dangling inside the car:

the metal noosed,

desperate to snag

the shiny head of the lock.


EMERGENCY MEDICAL SERVICES

BY RON RIEKKI

I’m an EMT. An empty ambulance. We wait

for the next call. My partner tells me she hates

minimum wage. We’re starving. The landscape: street.

A pre-apocalyptic world. We’re low on masks. Low.

I think of that word. How we have to stay six feet

apart. How they bury people six feet under. How

I’m six feet tall. You have to stay away the full

length of me. I stare at my partner, at her skull

sucking a cigarette, as if there’s no such thing as fate.


WIGGLY ENNUI 2

BY YUN BAI KIM

There are no mouths on the bus

Only silence is murmuring between the teeth shut by C19

Ears are chasing it

A sudden cough

The tight air on the silence pokes holes all over my body

A child

Like a child

Swinging legs

I got off the bus as if I were being chased before they drooped

Crouching masks

All are quiet

Teeth shut by C19

It made people streetless

But still they can be thrown to home

But of but the homeless-streetless

Where were they thrown?

Social distancing bread,

Social distancing bedclothes

That’s all I could give him yet

Last night’s rain was very cold

He’s nowhere now

I couldn’t let him in

Social distancing bread,

Social distancing bedclothes

That’s all I could give him yet

Just the sound of the ambulance strides on the street

Not yet


STILL LIFE OF SEX IN THE GARDEN OF EDEN

BY LIAM STRONG

before the mystery

of bird feeders

i debated

the sacrament of

my mother’s breast

my boyfriend’s nipple

what milk

or moan

i once pulled

but when i watch deer

nibble seed

like flower buds

pursing lips

to rain

they wander

from fulfillment

as if it is every-

where

i want to know

what it means

to open my tongue

gather crumbs

of air

to walk away

from a pleasure

and not question

who or what

to thank


NEWYORKIAN

BY DIVYASRI KRISHNAN

It was fun, once, to shoot heroin

from the tops of could-be skyscrapers, mid-construction just to say

we touched the sky

before the gloss-eyed tourist or the milkman or the witchmen in their suits

who stole the bones from beneath the skin

of poorer, grounded folk— once us. Now

we teethed on livewire; we wore new clothes, were invisible in the dusk.

But soon the bell to the door jangled

and the sun answered with a yawn

and we had to get down, then, or burn up Icarus-like,

before our high had even gone.


WHERE YOU ARE

BY JANICE S FULLER

I find you

in the drift of coffee

that wakes me as the light moves

through the room, and the doe

with her fawn tests the quiet

of the early morning,

tastes the water at the lakeshore.

I find you

in the lines that trace across your forehead,

that witness your confusion

at my futile explanations,

and the black bear wonders

where the bird seed has gone.

I find you

in the night

while the whippoorwill calls its mate,

and your hand searches out

the smoothness of my thigh.


POTENTIAL

BY YONGSOO PARK

Had my parents stayed in their homeland

Instead of coming to the U.S.

I might have

Attended Seoul University

Become a Samsung executive

Invented the smart phone

Started K-Pop

Produced BTS

Directed Parasite

Cured Covid

Instead of writing

Poetry


SOUP IN ISOLATION

BY JACQUELINE JULES

I chop celery and potatoes,

thinking of how I was sliced

into tiny pieces five years ago

when you became a silent presence

in my life, someone I recall

throughout the day in little bits

like these vegetables

dismembered on my cutting board.

The soup seasoned this morning

wafts through the house all day,

with your absence, always in my nostrils.

Garlic and bay leaf intensify my grief

as a virus rages around the globe

and I mourn for thousands upon thousands

of spouses, siblings, parents, children

who will sit down, as I do, at a table

missing a chair no one else can fill.


CONFESSIONAL // THE OPPOSITE OF LONELINESS

after Alok Vaid-Menon

BY KANIKA AHUJA

1. I struggle with beginnings the way I struggle

with alarm clocks, feel sorry for the minutes I take

for granted. I’ve run out of apologies for being late.

2. I often misspell too many words that sound alike.

Which is to say, my conscience is entirely made up

of me being consciously cautious about consequence.

3. Once, I let a woman tell me her story only so I could

write about it. I wonder if that makes me a monster.

I read poems in front of strangers and expect them

to be kind. I wonder if that makes me human.

I wonder if there’s a difference.

4. I have lived in the same house so long

I have forgotten the importance

of displacement, even in my words.

5. There is a boy I will always love too much.

There is always a boy I will love too much.

This difference is the buoyancy of my heart

and lately, I’ve been struggling to stay afloat.

6. I love the same way I pray – secretly,

always in the middle of the night

to the idea of a distant nobody.

7. I trust the same way I pray – in pieces,

stumbling onto forgiveness like a bruised

faith in everything I cannot hold.

8. I hope with a fiery intensity for the inevitable.

My brain is a reverse apocalypse turning

hourglasses to the tune of a fairytale.

9. There is a mathematical certainty that I will say

too much and still not feel enough.

10. I have too many bookshelves to mask loneliness.

But on mornings I build train stations in galaxies

out of paperbacks, this too can feel enough.


ON THIS SUMMER DAY

BY MARTIN WILLITTS JR

Morning is ponderous

as cows in interceding rain.

In this light,

words of encouragement are hard to find.

Waterlilies wait to rise from below the surface,

telling us it will be alright: this, too, will pass.

Extreme light unfolds

its white petals towards more light,

storing it for later, shushes of calm,

breath assembling what we will need:

so much penetrating light —

numbing us into meditative silence —

I am frightened by the possibility

I will never see you again.

I cannot write what I cannot say.

It is quiet when you’re not here,

or anywhere.

Rain is writing this down.

The weight of this morning is heavy

when, in a blink, you go away.


A QUESTION OF SCALE

BY PAUL ILECHKO

Mulch beats with its own small life

amidst the rocks and stones

there is nothing within sight

or range of hearing

nothing that is at human scale

as we dismiss the microscopic

as beneath our threshold of significance

* * * * * * *

the music of an empty place is harsh

and electric the key to unlock its score

is patience is slowness

* * * * * * *

footprints leave minor imprints but over time

the accumulation of impressions

recedes to nothing to a packed hardness

that even rain will fail to alter

* * * * * * *

when we speak of empty we speak

figuratively what we actually mean is that

there is nothing that is visible

or that snags on any other sense

* * * * * * *

the wind is the loudest sound we hear

missing as we do the low-pitched undertones

that paint an image of the sadness

of the natural world

a place where death takes place

at a scale unknown

within the world that we inhabit

... this civilization.


MASK UPON MASK

BY WILLIAM DORESKI

To don surgical masks means

layering mask upon mask,

concealing what’s always concealed.

The fresh new disposable mask—

simple, disfiguring, blunt—

over the old and permanent one—

complex, form-fitting, sly,

permeable to every slight.

Everyone is sporting these:

trapping their moist breath to foster

mildew the color of bruises.

Our coughs and sneezes occur

only in the dark. The virus

that has sculpted our routines

seeps through every precaution,

its innocence so evolved

it can kill without regret.

Still, we render fashionable

whatever we can’t avoid.

Some people sport paisley masks,

some checked, some embroidered

with messages too small to read

at a safe impersonal distance.

We stick to plain disposables

in white or that depressing blue

only seen in clinical settings.

Even walking in the woods,

we meet fellow masks struggling

to keep from touching their faces.

Our muffled hellos resound

in organs we hadn’t plumbed before.

Soon we’ll riot behind our masks,

running amok inside ourselves,

everyone sick of being good—

being good enough to survive.


THINGS CHANGE

BY TUFIK SHAYEB

my wife folded

each scarf, carefully

two, three, six layers,

following each instruction

for mask-making

and I remembered back,

after the planes crashed,

masks were unnecessary

suspicious, even

especially on tan skin

and once, we were afraid

of nearby strangers,

of long trips, small seats,

and of being in the air

but now, the air itself


SECTION 3


A LIFE LIVED BLACK

BY LEMACHI ENWEREMADU

constant fear

tinted windows

palms vibrating

with tremors

asked to step out

a tacit paralysis

consumes

glued to your hands

resides the wheel

glued to your hands

resides your last goodbye

as soon as you let go

the timer begins

15 minutes away

from the smell

of the cup foods market

at east 38th and chicago ave

a God willing 84

becomes 46

76 becomes 25

95 becomes 17

but i am only 17

a black 17

a disvalued 17

deprived of innocence

deprived of worth

you step out

you count the breaths

you have left

water drips to your cheek

unconsciously

but the land remains dry

devoid of rain


please somehow

escapes your caged lips

pressure ensues your neck

crippling

but i am only 17

a black 17

pursued with aggression

pursuing without intention

you see the gun

before the badge

the rain before the umbrella

death before

whatever protects death

a run impinges your mind

a run from destiny

a run from fate

you remember

you practiced this scenario

never run in a straight line

the jukes

the fakes

hesitation moves

a hands up stance

feel the wind of canfield drive

you look around

this will be the place

the street

you woke up

with your eyes closed

that morning

but i am only 17

a black 17

a human 17

at least i got to 17

you hear a faint voice


and static

two words

wrong guy

you resume your life

tinted windows

constant fear


A REVISIONIST HISTORY OF KABOOM

BY RODD WHELPLEY

In instant wisdom, we point at calamity

in the sky, smoky entrails of space ship dust.

We pundit these are endings,

breathe, pick a fainter line –

fragments arcing earthward, claim them

as germs for all the better beginnings.

Across the desk, my colleague wears

cherry-rimmed eyes. They complement

the recitation of his parental failings:

the first dance step of catastrophe unseen,

the O-ring unchecked, her evasive boyfriend

forever nodding off, the absent spoons

and money – all were somewhere

beyond last Thursday, when he discovered

his daughter unconscious on the rec room floor.

Back as a child, he says, he let her drink the heeltaps,

watch him inject insulin – Surely, that

was the butterfly stirring the tsunami.

I want to hold him, convince him nothing

is Gomorrah. Morals cannot glue

the San Andreas. Despite what he has heard,

Vesuvius buried Pompeii without homily.

God gives and gives and gives again,

even more than we can handle.

A life explodes. We need learn nothing.

But bang. It goes.


THE NOTE KEEPER

BY LINDA CARNEY-GOODRICH

On the verge of blue,

with cold salmon and bear paws,

watch my daughter brush me off.

Scramble up the path, her legs like spiders

her hair golden light chasing after.

I don’t recall giving birth to her.

Imagine she doesn’t return.

I stumble into the town,

mumble how I had

a family

that they disappeared.

I spend decades looking

for those who match their descriptions.

Fading, chipping, melting

into the grey.

The avalanche of time

pulverizes my memory.

Were his eyes more green than blue?

Was that the first son, or the other one?

Which one of them said, Moonie.

Hello beautiful, hello lovely!

Didn’t one of them have a face

open like a lake at dawn?

How did they all come to leave?

I meant to write the stories down.

Record it word for word.

So many lines went trailing off.

Lost or someplace

I could never imagine.


(SONNET #1,941) TWO SAAMI-AMERICANS WALK INTO A BAR

BY RON RIEKKI

Except that can’t happen. I don’t know two Saami-Americans.

Make it one Saami-American walks into a bar, alone.

He tells someone he’s Saami-American and they say, “What?”

Saami-American? And they say they understand the ‘American’ part,

but that first part makes no sense, except it makes sense

if you’re Saami, although the world doesn’t make sense.

The world is all about extinction. I’ve often thought about committing

suicide, but you can’t do that if you come from a people of disappearance.

You have to live. Why? To live. I can’t explain it. To continue.

Otherwise they win. Which is why I never go to bars.

It’s how they kill you. Subtly. It starts with commercials,

this weird thing where it’s cool to die. I don’t believe them, any of them.

This is the first poem you’ve ever read by someone who’s Saami-American.

What will you do? Will you burn down the bar? Will you kill all the stools?


THE WRECK OF CAPTAIN KISS

BY S.D. LISHAN

1.

We could see Africa from the deck

of our pirate ship as it broke up and sank,

the result of a tsunami named Norm.

“Goodbye,” said Nigeria. “I’m sorry,”

although we knew she wasn’t.

We could tell you much of how to struggle

when the Earth stands up, spreads her legs, places

her hands on her hips, and leans back, before

leaning forward to touch her elbows to her yoga mat,

but we were so distracted listening to the hoots

and pennywhistles, and the call and response of news

on our blown-up social media. I know, I know, we

need to turn the volume down, wise up, still our butts,

but still…

2.

A man died in Manitoba when a whirlwind

of burning straw lifted his pickup truck

and carried it 165 feet into a field of golden flax.

Whenever this happens

to you, my love, pretend you’re a cuttlefish

adrift on a heart of magma, swimming

through the wake left by the sea’s dreams.

Any other advice should be taken twice a day,

after you’ve laced your fading sutures with honey.

3.

Anger over Delhi’s growing wild monkey

population grew further, after a man died

after being struck in the head by a flower pot

thrown by one of the rogue animals.

It’s too late now to undue your angst and anger

settling like a mayor of lotus flowers

into the river your tongue makes after

you’ve been kissed. But still you can ingest the pure serene

of your blood until your spine

becomes breathless as a smile, wingless

as a tick. And of course whenever you’re near

Fire Island, you can look up into Frank O’Hara’s sun.


4.

A huge cloud of dust-laden wind from the Sahara

blasted the eastern Mediterranean, blotting out the moon.

The poll workers at the center of the earth

were angry. When the light hurts your eyes

this way, curl into a banana leaf and lay

your eyelids shut around you. Never blot; always tap,

and only appeal to your instincts for augury

when you wear a bathrobe. Say “forsooth” to plaid;

cry when Greenland melts; cut your lower lip

on the serrated edge of a kiss:

You’re bound to stay radiant forever.


AGATHA

BY KEN CATHERS

in the end

one of us

will turn out

to be a killer.

you know this

from the start,

even the least likely

are suspect,

each with their own

costume & deceit.

don’t be fooled

by accents, abnormalities

it is never that simple.

the dead man was

complex, apparently

had flaws, enemies

left clues to his

own undoing. it

is up to you.

trust no one.

believe nothing

but the worst

of these new found

friends. you have proof

that all vows

of innocence

are lies, that

there is a cause

for every effect

& in the end

you will reveal

how even the unnamed

ghost of wonder

is a fraud. we

stand exposed,


false culprits,

smaller now, while

you count back

the steps

to a world

where all your

unsolved mysteries

die.


NEWS OF AN EARTHQUAKE

BY GERMAN DARIO

when earth shakes

with the ferocity

of a wet dog i proclaim

this is my home

my son is learning to play the guitar

a few notes of many songs

over and over

the pauses diminish in time

as he learns to love

a body held against his

syncing small quake

to his beating heart

he builds a home

he can carry

a wish flowering inside

an immigrant father


QUAKE

BY KRISTIAN MACARON

I breathed three times tonight

—that I noticed. The chasm of my chest

wrapped in warm waterfalls of maelstrom.

I think I am becoming my own ocean.

When I say I’ve been writing this

between earthquakes, what I mean is

between the quiver of your heartstrings

unburying themselves through body waves;

your voice coming to me through shocks and

aftershocks. As your mantle shatters, so does my fortitude.

After all, you are fighting hundreds of miles of stone

and magma to reach me. I know it’s you. Always.

Always, I hear you like a cracking timber, like calamity.

The way I am attuned to your quake is not a form

but a frequency, and the Pangaea of my body flowers a

faultline of jade and ruby tears and tears.

When I say I’ve been writing this between

earthquakes, what I mean is I keep waiting

for your tremor to quiet in my arms, and I am

willing my body to not splinter tidal as

you tremble,

as you just keep breaking,

covering your heart

with a strong, dark earth,

a faulted root I cannot find.


INSTRUCTIONAL LITANY I

BY DAN WIENCEK

Find a hole. Probe it with something long and disapproving.

Maybe a length of wire, unkinked.

The wire’s end should sink to a modest depth.

Fill the hole with ethically sourced water.

Use a mesh to catch the artifacts that bob up.

Pottery flakes. Bones. Pens. Grandma’s rosary.

Spread the pieces before you. Throw nothing away.

Let it all dry, like salmon jerked from the river.

Stand back as the fragments tell their story.

Stare at the gaps, at the words not spoken.

Know that every memory breaks off somewhere.

Make it all make sense. It does not happen by itself.

Check your pulse — you should be in tears by now.

Ask yourself just who the hell you are.

Do not walk away until you have an answer.


WHY AND BECAUSE

BRENDAN CONSTANTINE & PEGGY DOBREER

Why are there more valleys than mountains?

Because everything said is temporary.

Why are goldfish so cheap?

Because a map of stars is just one point of reference.

Why don’t you dance me an answer?

Because misses and fortune live in the same room.

Why should I keep going then?

Because every room is a house and every cage a correlative.

And why is this valley so familiar?

Because airplanes go only so far before landing.

Why don’t we just change subjects?

Because landing is inevitable.

Why do promises frighten more than threats?

Because memory serves and won’t be pardoned.

Please pardon me anyway.


WITHIN A LOCKER’S WILD ABUNDANCE, CALM

BY MARJORIE BECKER

Because in fact it was him and me

who found our ways among the frozen food,

the locker lacking sapphire night

and sudden dawn yet there inside

we placed the wanton diary filled

with images of trees, of words about

the ways we played and splayed out times

all filled with crime, a touch of patience.


ON “ALL SURROUNDINGS ARE REFERRED TO A HIGH WATER” BY KAY SAGE

BY NADIA WOLNISTY

I know now that lobsters are not immortal,

but instead shed their exoskeletons when their flesh

bumps against it, like a toddler taking off

too-tight clothes. Each undressing

takes more time and energy as the lobster grows.

And because lobsters never stop growing,

they die sometimes, mid-eclosion,

of exhaustion. I see myself

as cathedral, getting knocked down

and rebuilt, each clearing

of debris more laborious than the last.

I have to be careful when I bump against supporting

walls. You told me you collect

suicides because even that doesn't guarantee

immortality. I wondered if you meant a scrapbook—

little things you made and found, turned sea-creature

with all the glue. A two-page spread with punch-outs

for Elliott Smith, globs of glitter for Marilyn.

Little construction-paper waves for Hart Crane

for when all surroundings were referred to as high water.

I don't think you meant to be mawkish.

You would eat the suicides’ transgressions

if you could, but instead you must store them another way.

As late as 1906, villages still had sin-eaters,

wretches paid to ease the suffering of the dead.

At the wake, a loved one would place a morsel

of food on the departed’s chest

to absorb their sins, like sins were sauce or brine.

After waiting—a few minutes? an hour?—

the outcast would eat, each soul's passing

made lighter by not having to carry

what no longer fit them. Then the sin-eater

became an outcast, forced to live

outside the village, dreaded like an ominous building

that must now and then be visited.

I know now that I am not immortal.

I've known that for a long time.

When I go, however I go,

place a blue lobster on my chest.


THE TRACTOR MAN SUGGESTS MELONS

BY R. BRATTEN WEISS

Today the tractor man offered me commiseration on the

death of my father, whose gardens he tilled for twenty years.

The last late dry corn was still standing, stalks of it white in

the weak sun, where my father last planted, heavy on his knees

in the soil, struggling to rise, blooms of cancer on his scalp and

wrists from fifty years of this, fifty years of tilling, planting, reaping.

I stood by while the tractor rolled over those last dry stalks,

the last corn my father ever grew. The inexorable tines

turned them under, turned them back into soil, food for worms

and centipedes and nematodes, food for food for us.

On my knees, pulling weeds from the garlic I realize I am

bearing my father’s image and storing his memory now

in more ways than I care to admit. I too am awaiting some

unattainable harvest. Some angel with a flaming sword.

The tractor man tells me I should plant melons there, where

the late corn is broken. The melons in Kroger all taste like cardboard,

he says. I tell him, melons sound good. I’ll think about melons.


OSMOSIS

BY PRIYA RAJAN

We sit down to subtract, add and multiply.

When one is taken away from a number, the number walks back, I say.

When one is added, it walks forward.

The four year old puts those down on a paper.

What happens when the whole number is taken away?

I say, the number vanishes.

We practice on a few digits till we reach hundred.

What is hundred taken away from hundred? I ask.

A blink and a pause. Doesn’t matter I say. It is always zero.

What happens when all stars are taken from all stars? She asks gazing at the sky.

A few blinks and a long pause. Stars remain, I mutter.

Everybody’s infinity is different.

Our arithmetic, geography and language slide us into philosophy.

And the osmosis of knowledge always flips direction.

In the beginning, it was only a mistaken notion of concentration.

She paints the paper blue. Marks streaks of purple and specks of gold.

Fish in the sea, she says, like planets in the sky.

A blink and a pause. Planets in my Universe always propel with a trailing white orbit.

I put my pen down, watch the stars above and below.


BEYOND THE OPENING OF THE UNIVERSE

BY MICHAEL FREVELETTI

I’ve interrogated the moon’s glow

Pushed for a steady rain of meteorites

If only to show me what space is up to

While nightly patterns emerge

The sky confirms nothing

And tomorrow will erase all comprehension

Until there’s nothing left to explore

Mostly because we’re limited in capacity

We imagine with the covers over our heads

A cut in the fabric trying to repair itself

Not even alone in our own minds

desperately trying to see farther.


THIS IS MY RIOT

BY DAVID B. PRATHER

This is my riot for George Floyd

because I don’t understand

the wicked knee of lightning. This

is my riot for Ahmaud Arbery

because I can’t run fast enough

or far enough. This is my riot

for Britney Cosby and Crystal

Jackson because the only words

I can find are on a note I threw

away. This is my riot for David

Spencer because gay panic is

still a real defense. This is my

riot for Gary Matson and Winfield

Mowder because the day is too

nice, the night too mysterious.

This is my riot for the three women

who will die today because

someone loves them violently,

and the three before them,

before them, before them.

This is my riot for students and teachers

who died knowing this could happen.

This is my riot for the one hundred

people who will be shot and killed

in the US today and every other

day. This is my riot for my grandmother

who grew up fatherless. This is

my riot against the lymphoma

that swims through her body. This

is my riot for Greta Thunberg

because her icy glare will never melt,

and I need her to sing when I cannot

sing. This is my riot for Theodore

Demers and Nicholas Eisele because

the sun won’t stop shining, and

it should. This is my riot because

sometimes I am guilty

of sitting at home while you beg

for your life. Sometimes I am halfway

across town when I should be

running through the streets

to make the whole world pay

for what they’ve done to all of you.


CONTRIBUTORS

Kanika Ahuja believes in the inexplicable joy of sunshines and smiles, hoarding verses on

sticky notes in mason jars to be set free like paper boats on rainy days. A poet, performer and

educator of poetry, Kanika works towards creating space for conversations through a

pedagogy revolving around art and articulation. Her work appears, or is forthcoming, at

AYLY (Are You Lost Yet?), The Medley, Sidereal Magazine, and Airplane Poetry

Movement’s Ultimate Poetry Anthology. She is based in New Delhi, India.

A Macon, Georgia native, Marjorie Becker learned Spanish in childhood, served in the Peace

Corps in South America, and has conducted extensive research on revolution and dance

throughout Latin America. Her poetry collections include Body Bach (2005) Piano

Glass/Glass Piano (2010) and The Macon Sex School (forthcoming) all from Tebot Bach. She

has received multiple awards and her poetry has been published in an array of journals and

anthologies, including Runes, Pratik, Levure Literraire, Desde Hong Kong: Poets in

Conversation with Octavio Paz, Spillway, Peacock Journal and The Southern Poetry

Anthology, Vol. V: Georgia.

Clare M Bercot Zwerling is a newish poet with five poems published to date in glassworks,

Halcyon Days, Night Waves Anthology 2019, Red Sky Anthology 2020 and Coffin Bell

Journal. Her forthcoming poetry publications include The Oakland Review, Before it Was

Cool and Poetry South. A recent retiree and transplant from Deep South Texas, she resides in

Northern California and is a member of the Writers of the Mendocino Coast.

Linda Carney-Goodrich is writer and teacher whose poems “Dot Girl” and “Vodka, Beer, and

Cigarettes” are published in City of Notions: An Anthology of Contemporary Boston Poems.

Her poems were among winners chosen by the Boston Poet Laureate in the 2014, 2016, 2017,

2018, 2019 and 2020 Mayor’s Poetry Program and have been displayed on the walls at Boston

City Hall. Linda is owner and operator of Home Scholars of Boston and a long time member

of the Hyde Park Poets.

Born (1951) and raised in Ladysmith on Vancouver Island, Ken Cathers has a B.A. from the

University of Victoria and a M.A. from York University in Toronto. Has been published in

numerous periodicals, anthologies as well as seven books of poetry, most recently Letters

From the Old Country with Ekstasis Press. He lives in the country with his family and his

trees.


Collaborative Poets—Brendan & Peggy:

Brendan Constantine is a nationally recognized poet based in Los Angeles. He is an

ardent supporter of Southern California's poetry communities and one of its most recognized

teachers. He is the current Poet-in-Residence at The Windward School. His collections

include Letters to Guns, Calamity Joe, and Dementia My Darling, Red Hen Press, and

Birthday Girl with Possum, Write Bloody Books.

Peggy Dobreer is a long-time dancer, performance artist and late-career poet. She is

winner of the 2017 Poetry Matters Poetry Prize, has received two Pushcart Nominations, and

has four collections: Drop and Dazzle and In the Lake of Your Bones, released by Moon Tide

Press, Face of Sky and Little Captures, self-published under First Eyes Press.

When writing together they have said of the other; Brendan is an Oddessey unto

himself, and Peggy puts the odd in Goddess.

German Dario resides in Tempe, Arizona with his wife, two sons, two dogs, a guinea pig and

sometimes a fish. Recently published in Good Works Review, Into The Void, The Friday

Influence, Right Hand Pointing, The New Verse News, The Acentos Review, and The

American Journal of Poetry.

William Doreski has published three critical studies and several collections of poetry. His

work has appeared in many print and online journals. He has taught at Emerson College,

Goddard College, Boston University, and Keene State College. His most recent books are

Water Music and Train to Providence, a collaboration with photographer Rodger Kingston.

Stephanie Yue Duhem is a 1.5 generation Chinese-American poet and educator. Her work

appears or is forthcoming in PANK, Glass, Lunch Ticket, and other journals. She was a

winner of Red Wheelbarrow's 2018 contest, judged by Naomi Shihab Nye. She can be found

on Twitter and Instagram @academoiselle or at sydpoetry.com.

Lemachi Enweremadu is a student at Delbarton School in NJ. He writes on his free time

because it helps him find peace, as his fingers type away to answer any conflicting affairs or

stress from within. He is published. Thank you for your time!

Sarah Ferris is published in RATTLE, Ol’ Chanty, and the upcoming Lummox9. Her

chapbook, Snakes That Dance Like Daffodils, was published in April, 2019. A novel is in the

works. Sarah has an MA in Spiritual Psychology from the University of Santa Monica, and a

BA in Cinema Studies from NYU. She lives in Los Angeles with her family.

Jean-Luc Fontaine is a Tucson based poet. He enjoys hot coffee and long bus rides.

Mike Freveletti is a poet living in Illinois. His poems have appeared in online and in print in

places like Snapdragon Journal, River Poets & Highland Park Poetry.

Janice S Fuller is a poet who lives and writes in the desert of Tucson, Arizona, and on a lake

in Wisconsin. She has degrees in English and Communication Disorders; spent her career as a

speech pathologist. Janice’s poems have been published in Amsterdam Quarterly, Caesura,

and Bethlehem Writers Roundtable among others.


Malisa Garlieb is a writer and metalsmith living in Vermont. Her poems have appeared in

Painted Bride Quarterly, Calyx, Rhino, Rust + Moth, and Off the Coast, among others.

Handing Out Apples in Eden, her poetry collection, was published by Wind Ridge Books.

Trisha Gauthier is a trans poet and writer. Her poetry has previously appeared, and is

forthcoming, in print under a different name.

Carol Hamilton has recent publications Louisiana Literature, Hawaii Pacific Review,

Southwest American Literature, San Pedro River Review, Dryland, Pinyon, Pour Vida,

Lunch Ticket, Adirondack Review, Commonweal,, U.S.1 Worksheet, Broad River Review,

Fire Poetry Review, Gingerbread House, Shot Glass Journal, Poem, Haight Ashbury Poetry

Journal, Sandy River Review, I-70 Review, Blue Unicorn, former people Journal, The Sea

Letter, Poetica Review, Zingara Review, Broad River Review, Burningwood Literary

Review, Abbey, Main Street Rag, Free Lunch, Poetry leaves and others. She has published

17 books: children's novels, legends, and poetry. She is a former Poet Laureate of Oklahoma.

Jeffrey Hantover is a writer living in New York.

Alan Harris is a hospice volunteer who helps patients write memoirs, letters, and poetry.

Harris is the recipient of the 2014 John Clare Poetry Prize as well as the 2015 Tompkins

Poetry Award from Wayne State University. Harris is a three-time Pushcart nominee. His

first chapbook of poetry, Hospice Bed Conversations, has been nominated for a Midland

Author's Award. Harris's full-length poetry book, Fall Ball, was released December 2018 by

Finishing Line Press. Most recently his work has appeared in Snapdragon, Third Wednesday

and Medusa's Last Laugh.

Paul Ilechko is the author of the chapbooks Bartok in Winter (Flutter Press, 2018) and

Graph of Life (Finishing Line Press, 2018). His work has appeared in a variety of journals,

including Manhattanville Review, West Trade Review, Cathexis Northwest Press, Otoliths

and Pithead Chapel. He lives with his partner in Lambertville, NJ.

Having grown up in rural Michigan David Jibson now lives in Ann Arbor where he is a co-

editor of Third Wednesday, a literary arts journal a member of The Crazy Wisdom Poetry

Circle and The Poetry Society of Michigan. He is retired from a long career in Social Work,

most recently with a Hospice agency.

Jacqueline Jules is the author of three chapbooks including Itzhak Perlman's Broken String,

winner of the 2016 Helen Kay Chapbook Prize from Evening Street Press. Her poetry has

appeared in over 100 publications including Gryoscope, The Broome Review, and Imitation

Fruit. Visit her poetry blog metaphoricaltruths.blogspot.com/

Yohjison believes that there are countless great poets in the world but he likes the splendor of

his poetry. He is going through a second ennui now. Yun Bai Kim

http://metaphoricaltruths.blogspot.com/


Divyasri Krishnan is a poet and high school student from Massachusetts whose work has

appeared in Rust + Moth, High Shelf Press, and the Wild Roof Journal. Further work is

forthcoming in the Bangalore Review, Waxing & Waning, and elsewhere. When she is not

writing, she can be found taking standardized tests or going for a run.

S.D. Lishan’s book of poetry, Body Tapestries (Dream Horse Press), was awarded the

Orphic Prize for Poetry. Their poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction have appeared in

journals such as Cutbank, Arts & Letters, Phoebe, Kenyon Review, Measure, Your

Impossible Voice, Creative Nonfiction, and Gyroscope Review. They live in Ohio, where they

teach creative writing at The Ohio State University.

Kristian Macaron resides in Albuquerque, NM, but is often elsewhere. Her poetry chapbook

collection is titled, Storm. Other fiction and poetry publications can be found in The Winter

Tangerine Review, Ginosko Literary Journal, Medusa’s Laugh Press, The Mantle Poetry,

Philadelphia Stories, Luna Luna Magazine, Gargoyle Magazine, and forthcoming in Asimov’s

Science Fiction and Drunk Monkey’s Magazine. She is a co-founding editor of the literary

journal, Manzano Mountain Review. View her work at Kristianmacaron.com

Megan McDermott is a poet and Episcopal priest based in Western Massachusetts. In 2018,

she graduated from Yale Divinity School where she also earned a certificate from Yale’s

Institute of Sacred Music, an interdisciplinary program dedicated to religion and the arts. Her

poetry has been published or is forthcoming in a number of journals, including The Christian

Century, Relief, Rust + Moth, Rock & Sling, The Cresset, Psaltery & Lyre, and Amethyst

Review.

Bruce McRae, a Canadian musician currently residing on Salt Spring Island BC, is a multiple

Pushcart nominee with over 1,600 poems published internationally in magazines such as

Poetry, Rattle and the North American Review. His books are The So-Called Sonnets

(Silenced Press); An Unbecoming Fit Of Frenzy; (Cawing Crow Press); Like As If (Pski’s

Porch); Hearsay (The Poet’s Haven).

Yongsoo Park is the author of the novels Boy Genius and Las Cucarachas, the memoir Rated

R Boy, and the essay collection The Art of Eating Bitter about his one-man crusade to give his

children an analog childhood.

David B. Prather is the author of We Were Birds from Main Street Rag Publishing. His work

has appeared in many print and online journals, including Colorado Review, Seneca Review,

Prairie Schooner, The American Journal of Poetry, American Literary Review, Poet Lore,

Gyroscope Review, and others. He studied acting at The National Shakespeare Conservatory,

and he studied creative writing at Warren Wilson College. He has lived most of his life in

Parkersburg, WV.

Priya Rajan lives in Bangalore, India. She worked in the software industry for more than a

decade and quit for personal priorities. Currently, she is striving to be a writer. Her works

have been published in NatureWriting, Snapdragon, Flock, Orion and Hinterland Magazines.

She is thankful for the time and attention her work shall receive.


Ron Riekki’s books include U.P. (Ghost Road Press), Posttraumatic (Hoot ‘n’ Waddle), My

Ancestors are Reindeer Herders, and I Am Melting in Extinction (Loyola University

Maryland’s Apprentice House Press).

Elodie Roumanoff was born in Paris, France and currently lives in Sydney, Australia. She is

pursuing a BA in English at the University of Sydney while writing as much as she can in her

spare time.

Rosemary Royston, author of Splitting the Soil (Finishing Line Press, 2014), resides in

northeast Georgia with her family. Her poetry and flash fiction has been published in journals

such as Split Rock Review, Southern Poetry Review, Appalachian Heritage, Poetry South,

KUDZU, NANO Fiction, and *82 Review. She’s an Instructor of English and administrator

at Young Harris College. https://theluxuryoftrees.wordpress.com/

George Ryan was born in Ireland and graduated from University College Dublin. He is a

ghostwriter in New York City. Elkhound published his Finding Americas in October 2019.

Tufik Shayeb's poetry has appeared in numerous publications, including Potomac Review,

Sheepshead Review, The Menteur, Lost Lake Folk Opera, Madcap Review, Heyday

Magazine, Blinders Journal, Muzzle Magazine, Restless Anthology, The November 3rd

Club, and others. To date, Shayeb has published three chapbooks and one full-length

collection titled, I'll Love You to Smithereens. Currently, Shayeb resides in Phoenix, Arizona.

Liam Strong is a Pushcart Prize nominated queer writer and studies Writing at University of

Wisconsin-Superior. They are the former editor of NMC Magazine. You can find their works

in Impossible Archetype, Dunes Review, Monday Night, Lunch Ticket, Chiron Review, The

Maynard, Panoply, Prairie Margins, and The 3288 Review.

Jocelyn Uasal is a transgender poet currently living in Reno, Nevada as a student, majoring

in English. She has previously been published in the first issue of Transcend Literary

Magazine, though when she isn't writing about romance you can usually find her painting on

her walls or tending to one of her many cats!

Abasiama Udom is a Poet and Writer. She lives in Akwa Ibom, Nigeria with her family

(parents and annoying brother) and finds the time to sleep, dance or watch Football and is a

student of life and education. Twitter: @AneuPoet

Lyndi Waters is a Pushcart Prize nominee, winner of the Frank Nelson Doubleday Memorial

Writing Award, the Eugene V. Shea National Poetry Contest, and the 2019 Wyoming

Writers, Inc. free verse contest. Lyndi’s poems have been published, or are forthcoming, in

literary magazines and anthologies such as The Owen Wister Review, Gyroscope Review,

New Verse News, Picaroon Poetry, Unbroken Journal, Blood, Water, Wind, and Stone: An

Anthology of Wyoming Writers (Sastrugi Press, 2016,) Troubadour (Picaroon Poetry Press,

U.K., 2017,) and others.


R. Bratten Weiss is a freelance academic and eco-grower residing in rural Ohio. Her creative

work has been published in a variety of publications, including Two Hawks Quarterly,

Presence, Connecticut River Review, Shooter, New Ohio Review and Slipstream. Her

chapbook Talking to Snakes is forthcoming from Ethel in 2020.

Laura Grace Weldon is the author of poetry collections Blackbird (Grayson Books, 2019) and

Tending (Aldrich Press, 2013), and as well as a handbook of alternative education titled Free

Range Learning (Hohm Press, 2010). She was named 2019 Ohio Poet of the Year. Her

background includes teaching nonviolence workshops, writing collaborative poetry with

nursing home residents, and facilitating support groups for abuse survivors. She works as a

book editor and teaches community writing classes. Connect with her at

lauragraceweldon.com.

Dan Wiencek is a poet, critic and humorist who lives in Portland, Oregon, and whose work

has appeared in McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, Hypertrophic Literary, New Ohio Review,

Timberline Review and other publications. He is currently working on his first collection of

poems.

Elaine Wilburt’s fiction and poems have appeared in The Cresset, Little Patuxent Review,

Route 7 Review, Heart of Flesh and Frogpond, among others. She volunteers as a copy editor

for Better Than Starbucks. A graduate of Middlebury College, she received a 2019 Creatrix

Haiku Award and lives in Maryland with her husband and five children.

Martin Willitts Jr has 24 chapbooks including the Turtle Island Quarterly Editor’s Choice

Award, The Wire Fence Holding Back the World (Flowstone Press, 2017), plus 16 full-length

collections including the Blue Light Award 2019, The Temporary World. His recent book is

Unfolding Towards Love (Wipf and Stock). He is an editor for The Comstock Review.

Rodd Whelpley manages an electric efficiency program for 32 cities across Illinois and lives

near Springfield. His poems have appeared in Tinderbox Poetry Journal, The Shore, 2River

View, Star 82 Review, Kissing Dynamite, Barren, and other journals. He is the author of the

chapbooks Catch as Kitsch Can (2018) and The Last Bridge is Home (coming in 2021). Find

him at www.RoddWhelpley.com.

Nadia Wolnisty is the founder and editor in chief of Thimble Literary Magazine. Their work

has appeared or is forthcoming in Spry, SWWIM Every Day, Apogee, Penn Review,

McNeese Review, Paper & Ink, and others. They have chapbooks from Cringe-Worthy

Poetry Collective, Dancing Girl Press, and a full-length from Spartan.


ANNOUNCEMENTS

Our Fall 2020 Issue will be a special issue, the annual Crone Power Issue. Submissions will be

limited to poets over 50 who identify as women. For this special issue, we seek work that

examines what it means to be a woman over 50—gifts, dreams, contributions. We want work

that thinks beyond the usual and celebrates wise women with all their strengths, and

experiences.

What does it mean to be a woman over 50 in the times of Covid 19? In times of protests?

From your perspective, how is the world doing? How can crones help?

If you are not a poet over 50 who identifies as a woman, please do not submit for our Fall

Issue. We will resume regular submissions for everyone with the winter 2021 issue in

January. Submissions for The Crone Power Issue open July 1, 2020, and close on September

7, 2020. If we accept enough poems to fill the issue before September 7, we will close the

reading period early.

Please read our guidelines on Submittable: https://gyroscopereview.submittable.com/submit/

Thank you for reading!

https://gyroscopereview.submittable.com/submit/

Gyroscope Review · 2020-06-27 · Gyroscope Review Summer 2020 Issue 20-3 77 ANNOUNCEMENTS Our...

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